User feedback is currently an important mechanism by which developers of software improve the experiences of the user's who use the software. For instance, if a user provides feedback indicating that the user experience is unsatisfactory, a developer may undertake changes to the application in an effort to improve the experience of the users using the application.
Some current software systems allow a user to provide feedback. However, the user must often navigate away from a current display, and enter a specialized user feedback display. The user feedback display then dominates the user's screen and requires the user to input a fairly onerous amount of information into a user feedback form. The user must then submit the form, and only then can the user return to the application display that the user was previously viewing. This is a fairly cumbersome mechanism for receiving user feedback. Therefore, many users do not provide any feedback, whatsoever. They simply have a satisfactory user experience, or an unsatisfactory user experience, and they return to the software systems on which they have had satisfactory experiences, and tend to stay away from those systems where they have unsatisfactory experiences.
It is also currently very difficult to provide a mechanism for receiving user feedback on subtle features of a user interface. For example, if a developer changes a user interface page layout, or color, of if the developer changes the features available on a given user interface page, it is difficult to tell how the users are perceiving those changes. For instance, many user feedback mechanisms allow the user to rate an overall product, but not to rate a specific screen or user interface display. Therefore, if the user rates the product relatively low, the developer is left wondering whether it was the user interface features, the layout of the page, the function of the application, etc., which left the user with an unsatisfactory experience. Similarly, if the user rates the application relatively high, the developer is in no better position to determine precisely what parts of the application the user enjoyed.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.